Tombstone epitaph., 1887-10-29
A BUSTED BUBBLE.
THE ToRTILlTA MINING COMPANY
Report of General Sayr. One of the Leading Experts of the Country. Which Confirms What the Rpi-
 taph Previously
 Said.

0Pu EkevlOuSy
 Said. General Hal Sayr, of Denver, Col, who has been the "court expert" in some of the biggest mining cases in the West, is a very conservative man. He visited the Torti!ita for the New York Herald, and row reports on what he found there. The following are the points:
 The Tortilita mines are on the mesa between the Tor,ilira and Owls Head mountains, about ,hirty.6ve miles north westerly from Tucson and fifteen miles from the Southern Pacific railway. The country is a vast plain, having an average elevation of about thirty-6ve hundred feet, broken by short mountain ranges, which rise in isolated masses and peaks from the general level m such manner that wagon can be driven en. tirely around them.
 Some of these mountains are granite, others porphy ritic in general character The plains-or as they are locally term ed, mesas-are alluvial, showing depos its of twenty-five to 400 feet of alluvial matter.
 On arriving at Tucson found no min- ing excitement whatever; indeed, many people had never heard of the famous Torulna mines." Inquiry at the Sur veyor Generals office and the United States Land Office failed to elicit any of hcial knowledge of them; indeed neither of these offices had ever heard of them except in the most casual manner. The only bank in the city had heard of the mines, but Mir. Freeman, the cashier, knew of no shipment of bullion, nor was any business done through their bank by the: :Tortili,a company.
 l next visited the mines. The mill, office, assay building and a dozen cober. tizos occupied by the Mexican laborers, are located in little gulch winch heads | in the Tortilita mountains. An examina- ton of this gulch for . long distance above the camp showed 10 water at the surface except in one place where stag. nant pool in a rock was fed by very small stream trickling from crack in an adjacent ledge. The water for the mill is pumped from we'll forty feet deep in the bedrock of the gulch. We were told that owing to the scarcity of water the mill had been used only during the daytime for several days.
 An examination of the mill, made by permission of MT. Elmore, the superin- tendent, showed the usual machinery for crushing and treatment of ores by raw amalgamation. A 6ve-stamp battery had the accompanying pans and rotating mullers, together with the necessary boil CT and engine for driving them. But taken as a whole, the mill and its sur rounding were not in first class condition and did not bear out the published des- cription.
 We were shown the G ,lden Eagle mine, said to be gold mine, the only one of the group which is claimed such It is in a granite formation, shows de- fined vein of quartz from six to ten inche. thick, dipping to the south at an angle O abou, So degrees from horizontal.
 The shaft is said to be eighty feet deep No drifting or stoping has been done The material taken from the shaft re- mains where it has been dumped. It i. said to carry g in gold and S in silve' to the ton. This beng the nearest min, to the mill, as no ore from it is beini treated, it evidently has no present value The By Chance Extension and Lone W,i silver mines extend over a surface abou one thousand by tive two hundred feet They are of all depths from mere pit ,s ISo feet. They dip in various direction. and show neither unity nor continuity The work has evidently been done ,c ascertain if possible the dip and trend O a main ore body and at the same tims get all the ore within reach. There i. no display ot systematic work, but con stant gropins for something definite some denned wall or dip. Neither O these have yet been found continuous breaks and faults in all directions have been encountered, and after all the worl done there is still very great doubt if there i. lode, if indeed the ores belong to or come from lode or have any con. tinuity below water level, where it is claimed by the present owners that there is ''concentration of ore" whatever they may mean by the expression,
 These workings follow . well defined ridge or ledge of fsyenite which has some. thing the appearance of trap dyke. In this syenite occur veins and punches ol quartz, which are apparently the source of the ores mined.
 The principal workings have centered about points where the ledge has been greatly disturbed, where, instead of main taining itself as ridge above the plain, it has disintegregated and merged into